The Man Behind the Mask
by Aria Mai Olican-Wren
Summary: "John, I don't want to die down here." "So don't, Oliver." They found his body in an abandoned warehouse. His lips blue and his hood soaked with the rain that dripped from through the ceiling. Inspired by "The Courage or the Fall" by Civil Twilight. Character death.


Based off of the song "The Courage or the Fall" by Civil Twilight. It played at the end of 'Sara' in season three and I kept listening to the song over and over again and this happened. I also listened to "9 crimes" by Damien Rice, "Not about Angels" by Birdy and "Say Something" by Great Big World. It was written in one session and it didn't get any editing but it honestly shredded my heart to pieces and I couldn't continue writing.

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><p>They found his body in an abandoned warehouse. By the time John found him he was long gone. He had been patrolling, hadn't bothered to tell anyone. Felicity had gone home for the night. John was at home with Lila and little Sara. Laurel was curled up in her apartment, clutching the small stuffed shark. Roy had left, not able to face Oliver after showing him the note. He'd gone out on patrol, on his own.<p>

For a halting second John thought he was just unconscious, knocked out in a fight. Lowering his gun, he moved quickly to Oliver's side. He stopped a few feet short, his heart racing the second he saw Oliver's blue lips. His skin was ice cold, his hood soaked as rain dripped down from the ceiling. He started CPR, thinking he could save Oliver. It wouldn't be the first time it had happened.

"Please Oliver, wake up."

"Come on Oliver."

"Oliver, wake up!"

His words dropped off into silence, unheard. His pleading went unnoticed, quietly echoing off the concrete walls. John stopped, breathing heavily.

This can't be happening.

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><p>Felicity was curled up in her covers, sound asleep, when her phone rang. Reaching blindly towards her nightstand, she nearly slid it off the table before gripping it steadily.<p>

"Yes?" She croaked out, voice groggy from sleep.

She let out a gasp, sitting up suddenly. Her hand flew to her lips, chocking on a sob. "What?" She whispered, in shock. "No, no he can't be dead. I just saw him a few hours ago."

"No, Dig, don't tell me he's dead!" She shouted, "He can't be."

Tears slipped down her cheeks, guided by her horror, her shock, her pain. Shutting her eyes tight, Felicity shook her head. Can't be happening. Can't be happening. Can't be happening. This is just a dream Felicity, wake up. He's not dead. He can't be dead. Oh god…

She got out of bed, throwing on an old, ratty shirt and the black skirt laying on her bedroom floor. Grabbing her keys and a jacket, she rushed out of her apartment. The cold rain chewed through her clothes as she ran to her car, biting her skin. The car wasn't much warmer, refusing to warm up completely as she drove to the old factory with the heat blasting.

Then she was just sitting there, in her car, staring at the rusted sides of the old factory, converted to a club, secretly a hideout for their nightly activities. Cold fingers tangled through her hair as tears continued to pour with the rain. She sat there for the longest time, fighting off a panic attack. She couldn't do this. She couldn't just walk in there. She couldn't.

Getting out, she ran inside.

She let out a pained sob, seeing him there, lifeless on the table. She hung there in the doorway, trying to make herself step further inside. Dig stood there, hunched over the table like he was waiting for Oliver to jolt up, alert and wary because that was how Oliver always woke up. Closing the door, Felicity slowly went down the stairs, her arms wrapped around herself. They stood in silence, looking down at their friend. Dead.

The silence wasn't broken until Roy rushed in, pale and stunned.

"No," He whispered.

Felicity brushed her fingers along Oliver's forehead, more tears slipping down her cheeks.

"He's so cold," She whispered, eyes shut as she retracted her hand.

"What," Roy closed his eyes and tried to collect his scattered thoughts, "What happened?"

John shook his head, "I don't know," He whispered, "He called my phone but I didn't hear it in time to pick up and when I tried to call him again he didn't pick up."

"I found him in the warehouse," He finished, trailing off slowly.

There was a slam, his fist colliding with the metal table. "God dammit!" He shouted.

"First Sara and now," Felicity couldn't finish that sentence.

"I can't believe I wasn't there," John ground out, head bowed down.

"It's not your fault," Felicity whispered, trying to comfort him.

Roy moved towards the table, standing next to Felicity, "You're right, it's not his fault. It's mine, I was the last one to see him and I didn't…"

"I didn't stick around, I just left," Roy murmured, "I left because I just…"

He stuffed his hands inside his red hoodie, hands balled in fists so tight his knuckles were white. "And there wasn't anyone to go out on patrols with him."

"It's not your fault either," Felicity whispered, reaching under her glasses to wipe her tears away.

They stood in silence for a moment before Felicity thought to ask something.

"Do you know what killed him?"

John pulled a broken syringe out of his jacket pocket, hold inside a plastic baggie. He handed it to Felicity before turning to sit down.

"Why is it always a syringe?" She whispered.

"What?" Roy asked, not quite hearing her.

"Why do people keep trying to poison him with things?" Felicity asked, "The count with vertigo, the copy-cat doctor, with vertigo again, two days ago some other lunatic."

She stopped, "Some other lunatic decided to mess with the vertigo recipe again and he got injected with more." Her voice trembled, her hands shaking.

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><p>Three hours later Felicity had an answer for them, he was poisoned, but not with vertigo. Someone had injected Oliver with epinephrine and enough of it to give him a heart attack. He was dead in minutes and there was nothing anyone could do. For a while she'd stopped crying, determined in finding out what really happened but that brought the tears back with a vengeance. For a while she sat in the dark, alone, wiping away tear after tear until she gave up entirely.<p>

It was hard to think that, just a few nights ago, he'd kissed her. It made her skin buzz, her heart flutter and she wanted to just stay there forever.

"Felicity, don't ask me to say I don't love you."

Those words, spoken so softly. But it was over, it was over before it could even start.

Sniffling, she pulled her knees to her chest. She didn't pray, she wasn't really much of a prayer but tonight she did, pleading with whoever was in charge to just bring him back, that the world still needed him. She still needed him.

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><p>John made the calls, to Laurel, her parents, Walter, Anatoly Knyazev. Roy called Thea, but she didn't pick up. He wasn't even sure she still had her phone anymore. There weren't many people beyond that to call. Oliver's parents were gone, Tommy, Sara and anyone else who mattered to him in his past on the island were either dead or unreachable or they'd never heard of before. They planned the funeral, it seemed they were the only ones left to do it.<p>

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><p>Quintin stared at the phone in his hand, scowling. The second he heard Oliver was head he called the Arrow, wanting answers, but he never picked up and he always picked up. He made the connection then, after calling him for the fifth time in two hours. It was a matter of cornering Felicity Smoak that finally confirmed it. She was a mess, in tears and hair tangled up in knots, as she walked from her car to her apartment. He had her pressed against her front door, avoiding his gaze as he asked her why the Arrow wasn't picking up.<p>

"He's dead!" She cried out lowly, her voice raw from hours of crying, "He's dead and I just want to go to bed and stop thinking because thinking is the hardest thing right now and, oh God, I don't know what to do."

She pressed her palms to her cheeks, trying to hold back tears. He pulled her into a hug, holding her tight to her chest like he did with his daughters when something bad happened to them, like he did when Laurel found out Oliver was dead.

"Oliver, he's the Arrow, isn't he?" He asked.

Felicity couldn't say anything, just nodded against his chest, trying to stop crying.

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><p>Laurel sat on her chair, the same chair she'd spent the whole night in, last night, thinking of Sara. In only a few nights she'd lost two amazing people all over again, gone and never to come back. It was so unfair and it left her gasping and angry with this tangled knot of pain in her chest. In one rush of anger she kicked the coffee table over. Papers flew and the mug she'd been drinking her cold tea out of shattered. Everything seemed to shatter these days, Tommy, Oliver, Sara, gone too soon. Why was she even still here anymore? They weren't, why did she still get to be here?<p>

Getting up, she went to pick up the broom and clean up the mess. As she was searching for small mug fragments under the couch she found an old wine bottle behind a dirty shirt. Pulling it out, she stared at it for a long time. A year ago she would have drained it.

She might still drain it.

Standing up, Laurel rushed to her kitchen and opened the bottle before pouring it down the sink as quickly as she could. She wasn't going there. She couldn't go there. They wouldn't want that for her.

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><p>John stood over the crib, staring at little baby Sara who was sleeping soundly. She mostly just slept it seemed, all the eventful bits seemed to happen when he was asleep or out trying to help Roy and Felicity plan the funeral service. His heart felt heavy. He'd lost friends in combat before, he served three damn tours for God's sake, but never like this. Oliver wasn't just a friend, he was a brother. They had each other's backs, every day, every night. Part of him wanted to find whoever killed his friend but he knew that Oliver wanted him to step back from their vigilante life, their hero life, to focus on his family.<p>

He and Lila had been talking about choosing Godparents for Sara. Their choices had been Felicity and Oliver and in a week or two John had been planning on asking them about it.

But now what?

Sara turned over, gurgling.

What if in two or three years he and Lila decided to have another, maybe a little boy. He known for a while what he'd want to call his son. It was just a shame Oliver would never meet his namesake.

Lila walked into the room, "You think maybe you want to come to bed?" She asked him.

"Lila, I don't think I want to do anything," He whispered.

"It's harder this time around, isn't it?" Lila inquired.

John nodded. "I've never lost someone quite like Oliver before," He murmured, "Nobody could have done what he did and for the reasons he did. This city doesn't even realize what it's lost yet, or who it's lost."

"I feel like the world should stop spinning, stop just long enough to look and see what it's lost. And nobody in the world will really know who the Arrow really was, or the kind of man Oliver was or what he had to go through to become that."

Lila sighed and wrapped her arm around him, "If you ask me, the world did stop spinning," She whispered before walking back to bed.

* * *

><p>The funeral happened quietly, under the radar. Only Oliver's closest friends came. John, Felicity and Roy stood at the front of their small crowd, holding hands. Laurel pressed herself against her father, her cold, slender fingers brushed against her mouth as she brushed the thumb of her right hand across the picture in her coat pocket. It was of her, Tommy, Sara and Oliver. Walter stood to her right, a few photos in his hand, of Robert and Oliver together when Oliver was only eighteen. Another of Thea and Oliver together last year. One of Moira, from seven years ago. He knew these pictures were some of Oliver's favorites, kept in his room when he was still living at home. Anatoly came, unusually grim compared to when John and Felicity had last seen him.<p>

He'd been the one to tell them that a Russian funeral tradition was to leave money or food or favorite belongings with the deceased.

John and Roy opened the casket up. Exchanging a look, they placed Oliver's green hood next to his right hand. Felicity placed his box next to his left hand. There wasn't anyone here who didn't already know Oliver was the Arrow anyway. Laurel stepped forward to place her picture on Oliver's chest, followed by Walter. Quintin placed his old detective shield in Oliver's jacket pocket. He and his entire family would probably be dead, twice over, if it weren't for him. Anatoly had once given Oliver a bottle of vodka and now he gave Oliver another.

He stayed for a moment longer to whisper something in Russian before moving back to the rest of the crowd.

"Oliver."

Everyone moved to the side as Thea walked towards the casket, tears in her eyes. They hadn't noticed her, standing in the back like that. Thea stopped when she saw the hood and the bow and she wasn't sure if she was shocked or not. She felt to numb to know what she felt.

She placed her hand on his chest, "I'm so sorry," Thea whispered, "I'm sorry for leaving, for not calling or telling you where I really went."

"I know you probably think I hate you," She continued, tears streaming down her cheeks, lips quivering as she tried to hold the tears back. "I'm so, I'm so sorry for letting you think that. I love you more than anything, you were my hero, you protected me every day and I love you so much."

She held up the hozen, "You told me once that this symbolizes reconnecting," She whispered, "One day, one day I promise we'll be together again, even if it's years from now."

Placing the hozen on his chest, Thea reached down and kissed Oliver on his forehead, like he'd done so many times to her over the years. Stepping away, she hastily wiped her tears away. Roy reached out and pulled her into a hug, knowing right now she needed it more than ever.

"What do I do?" She whispered into his chest, "What do I do now that he's gone?"

Roy held onto her tighter, "I don't know," He whispered, "What I do know is that he loved you more than anything and he'd want you to be happy."

"He's really gone this time," Thea whispered, "Before he was but he wasn't and he is."

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><p>If you ask me this is far from perfect and could be explored more but it honestly hurt to write. I started crying, hard, when Thea sad goodbye. I have so many thoughts and no idea where to put them right now.<p> 


End file.
